People carry their belongings as they leave their damaged residential building following a strike in Dobropillia, Donetsk region, on March 8, 2025. (Photo by Tetiana DZHAFAROVA / AFP)
Dobropillia, Ukraine: Russia on Saturday said its troops had retaken three villages seized by Ukraine in its Kursk border region in a fresh setback for Kyiv as the prospect of peace negotiations appeared to be increasing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday called for more sanctions against Russia as overnight strikes killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens more.
The war is at a critical juncture, days ahead of talks between US and Ukrainian negotiators aimed at securing a truce in the three-year-long war.
Washington has suspended crucial US military aid and access to satellite imagery and intelligence sharing after President Donald Trump and Zelensky had a public falling-out in the Oval Office last week.
Ukraine still controls some 400 square kilometres (150 square miles) in the Kursk region after launching a cross-border offensive last August and Zelensky sees this as a possible bargaining chip in peace talks.
But Ukraine's troops in Kursk have seen their position worsen in recent weeks with Russia's army encroaching.
Russia's defence ministry on Saturday announced the recapture of three more villages: Viktorovka, Nikolayevka and Staraya Sorochina.
According to DeepState, an online military tracker linked to the Ukrainian army, the Russian move followed a "breach" in Ukrainian defence lines near the town of Sudzha, which is under Kyiv's control.
Russia appears to have cut off the logistics route needed by Ukraine to supply its troops in the town.
The Ukrainian army has not commented on the latest claim, but Russia has already taken back more than two-thirds of its territory initially seized by Kyiv.
'Shocking'
The latest air raids came after EU leaders, shaken by the prospect of US disengagement, agreed to boost the bloc's defences.
Putin "has no interest in peace", the European Union's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Saturday, adding that "we must step up our military support".
In Dobropillia, AFP saw charred residential buildings, flattened market stalls and evidence of cluster bomb damage.
Irina Kostenko, 59, spent the night cowering in her hallway with her husband. When she left the apartment building on Saturday, she saw a neighbour "lying dead on the ground, covered with a blanket".
"It was shocking, I don't have the words to describe it," Kostenko told AFP.
Moscow's defence ministry on Saturday said its air defence systems destroyed 31 Ukrainian drones over the past night.
A Ukrainian drone attack also targeted Russia's Kirishi oil refinery and falling debris caused damage to a reservoir, the governor of the northwestern Leningrad region, Aleksandr Drozdenko, said.
A civilian was wounded by a drone attack in Belgorod district near the Ukraine border, local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram.
